Rename: Ghazal Omid on the Iranian Revolution

[lonewolf]

Hmmmm.. I apologize for the unintentional false alert. I just heard from Ghazal. She testified in an Intelligence hearing for more than an hour today in a SRO chamber full of Congressman, Senators, their aides and military, C-span recorded it, Q&A, the whole bit. She was solicited for advice and information by a number of new offices. They are calling her back next week.
When I belatedly checked the C-Span schedule for today, it was listed as an Intelligence "closed hearing". I guess that explains why it was not televised live.
She knows the Iranian mentality and has better intelligence than the CIA. For two years she has been advising Senators and Congress on Iranian politics and culture, predicting future events and consequences with uncanny accuracy. Some took her seriously, some didn't. Apparently, a lot of them woke up this week.
I fully expect her to become a force in the Iranian government when the mullahs are overthrown and she can return to Iran.

[Pego]

I fully expect her to become a force in the Iranian government when the mullahs are overthrown and she can return to Iran.

Do you think it is a realistic expectation or more of a wishful thinking?

[lonewolf]

I fully expect her to become a force in the Iranian government when the mullahs are overthrown and she can return to Iran.

Do you think it is a realistic expectation or more of a wishful thinking?

Well, admittedly it is a long shot but I don't put anything past her. She is persistent and stranger things have happened. Google Ghazal Omid, read her personal/political bio. She has over come tremendous obstacles and come a long way.
Perhaps most important, she believes it.

[jazzcyclist]

Lonewolf, you seem to be a person who genuinely cares about the Iranian people and you understand that their sense of pride and patriotism is no less than ours. Having said that, does it infuriate you as much as it does me to hear politicians urging our President to threaten and condemn Iran with bellicose statements? How can that possibly benefit the people in the streets? Personally, the folks in the streets are my primary concern, and when you have a scoundrel like Benjamin Netanyahu heaping praise on them, that tells you all you need to know about the ramifications of interference in their movement from the West.

[lonewolf]

The Iranian situation is undeniably a sticky wicket for Obama. It is in the best interest of Iran, the US and the world that the Islamic theocracy be replaced so Iran and Iranians can enter the modern world, live in personal freedom and garner some benefits from Iran's oil and gas wealth now being dissipated in fomenting anti-West turmoil because of irrational hatred of the West by the ruling, medevial minded mullahs.
How to do that?
Persians are nationalistic with a long history of civilization under a succession of rulers with periods of oppression interspersed with periods of relative personal freedom. Persians are just people. They have families and want the same things we want, peace, prosperity and personal freedom. 65 per cent of them were born after the 1979 revolution and feel no personal guilt for that fiasco. The problem is, the old guard, who brought the revolution, are still in power with no intention or relinqishing it, and the young folks are aware of life in the outside world and want some ot it.
Although, young Iranians do not implicitly trust their government to not use nuclear power for a bomb, because of Achmadinejad's tirades, they still feel Iran has the right to nulear power for domestic energy, even though Iran has vast oil and gas reserves adequate to supply domestic requirements for hundreds of years. One consideration, despite Iran's boasting of the ramp up in centerfuges, sources inside Iran's nuclear program say it will be five ot eight years before Iran could produce a nuclear bomb. The big question is, would the mullahs be insanely, suicidal enought to use it.
Israel thinks so but, IMO, a pre-emptive strike at this time would be a mistake.
That said, military intervention would be a disaster. It would instantly convert 60 million Iranians, who do not now hate the West, into enemies.
What should Obama do? I do not advocate overt sabre rattling but I do not think he has condemed forcefully enough the Iranian governments brutal crack down its people's right to free speech. He is even behind Europe's Iranian apologists in this regard.
He is not going to change the mullahs minds by "talks", not matter how well intentioned and, IMO, it is a mistake to accord them that respectability.
Iran has a comparable student uprising in 1999 which collapsed for lack of outside support. Iranians, young and old,want a do over. The question is how to give it to them. Is verbal encouragement for outside sufficient.? Iranians know the West supports them in theory. Unfortunately, theory is trumped by armed force unless there is suicidal mass uprising.
The difference in this revolt and the 1979 edition is, many of the Shahs troops refused to fire on their countrymen. Not so generous, the mullahs. In fact, there are Arab speaking plain clothes enforcers, suspected Hizbollah and Hamas, in the mob disciplining and arresting Bassij and Sepah Passadaren who refuse to fire on the protestors.
Intelligence concensus is the the young woman, Neda, was not the intended target of the sniper who killed her but rather the sniper was aiming at one of the two men with cell phone cameras who were beside and behind her. But, she is just as dead.
. The riots have morphed from the election results into generic disapproval of the regime. Most of the pundits are saying the uprising is quelled.. but, stay tuned.

[jazzcyclist]

What should Obama do? I do not advocate overt sabre rattling but I do not think he has condemed forcefully enough the Iranian governments brutal crack down its people's right to free speech. He is even behind Europe's Iranian apologists in this regard

But keep in mind, those European governments still have normal relations with Iran, which means they have the ability to influence them with sticks. The only stick left in the US's arsenal is war. Other than that, the only thing we can do to influence them is offer them carrots. Conversely, Israel takes every word from Obama seriously, since we have unlimited sticks to use against them, while they ignore criticism from other world leaders. What would have been our reaction if Iran had criticized the results of our government for the 2000 election or the handling of the Hurricane Katrina aftermath?

The question is how to give it to them. Is verbal encouragement for outside sufficient.? Iranians know the West supports them in theory. Unfortunately, theory is trumped by armed force unless there is suicidal mass uprising.

Exactly! Unless you're willing to back up the revolutionaries with force, it's irresponsible to encourage an uprising. Otherwise, all you're doing is condemning them to death as Eisenhower did in Hungary in the 1950's Kennedy in Cuba in the 1960's and Bush 41 with the Iraqi Shiites in the 1990's.

[bad hammy]

Personally I think that this situation is entirely up to the Iranians to figure out. Anything we do at this point will just make things worse, both short term and long term.

Oh, and this thread would have been picked up quicker by those of us with an interest in the subject if it did not have its unfortunate title. Geraldo is not exactly a respected newsman or TV figure.

[lonewolf]

Geraldo is not exactly a respected newsman or TV figure.

Granted, Geraldo is a scuz. I will not watch him unless Ghazal is on his show.but when you are an author and activist, you take the call when a major network calls. She is called nearly every time there is a major event or development in the Middle East and has appeared more than a hundred times as guest or panelist on virtually every major talk/political show on network and cable TV. She refuses to take a political stance on American politics and when a producer tries to pre-arrange an on air controversy, she will not give them a counter point she does not believe in.

[jazzcyclist]

Lonewolf, what does Ghazal Omid think about the role that Khatami and Rafsanjani are playing all of this?

[lonewolf]

Lonewolf, what does Ghazal Omid think about the role that Khatami and Rafsanjani are playing all of this?

Both are regarded as high level personal profiteers, who, after 30 years of known corruption, are now being pursued as a smoke screen by the Ahmadinejad administration.
Ironically, Khatami was Minister of Education when Ghazal was a university studen in Isfahan. He gave her handwritten authority to cut through red tape and transfer to university in Tehran after she boldy walked through his entourage of body guards in a hotel lobby and told him her story. This did not, however, earn him her eternal admiration.

[jazzcyclist]

In fact, there are Arab speaking plain clothes enforcers, suspected Hizbollah and Hamas, in the mob disciplining and arresting Bassij and Sepah Passadaren who refuse to fire on the protestors.

I have to tell you that I follow events in that part of the world pretty closely too, and the idea that Hamas and Hezbollah are involved in the Iranian crackdowns sounds pretty far-fetched to me. It reminds me of one of the neocons, Frank Gaffney, who went on MSNBC a few weeks ago and said that Saddam trained Timothy McVeigh in explosives prior to the Oklahoma City bombings.

[Daisy]

Oh, and this thread would have been picked up quicker by those of us with an interest in the subject if it did not have its unfortunate title.

Just opened this thread for the first time. A gem with a title that scares off the unwary. Lonewolf, if you go back to your original post it is still possible to edit the title.

[lonewolf]

In fact, there are Arab speaking plain clothes enforcers, suspected Hizbollah and Hamas, in the mob disciplining and arresting Bassij and Sepah Passadaren who refuse to fire on the protestors.

I have to tell you that I follow events in that part of the world pretty closely too, and the idea that Hamas and Hezbollah are involved in the Iranian crackdowns sounds pretty far-fetched to me. .

Not at all far fetched. Iran has been bankrolling Hezbollah and Hamas and stirring the pot in Lebanon and Palestine for years. Ghazal has contacts in the street, unfiltered through the media, secure telephone and direct live TV. That is what Iranians on the ground report.

[jazzcyclist]

In fact, there are Arab speaking plain clothes enforcers, suspected Hizbollah and Hamas, in the mob disciplining and arresting Bassij and Sepah Passadaren who refuse to fire on the protestors.

I have to tell you that I follow events in that part of the world pretty closely too, and the idea that Hamas and Hezbollah are involved in the Iranian crackdowns sounds pretty far-fetched to me. .

Not at all far fetched. Iran has been bankrolling Hezbollah and Hamas and stirring the pot in Lebanon and Palestine for years. Ghazal has contacts in the street, unfiltered through the media, secure telephone and direct live TV. That is what Iranians on the ground report.

I know about about Iran's support for Hezbollah and Hamas. I also know about Egypt and Saudi Arabia's historical support for Hamas. They just recently became disillusioned with Hamas when Iran began corrupting Hamas to the point where this Sunni organization would no longer listen to them. Up until then, Egypt turned a blind eye to the smuggling tunnels in the south of Gaza. But unlike Al Qaeda, both of these groups have a narrow focus and only operate between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. If there are Arabs operating in Iran, don't you think it's much more likely that they came from Iraq?

[dakota]

Nobody took that Hamas / Lebannon Hezbollah rumour seriously, not even the Iranians who posted it to Twitter.

There is purportedly a lot going on behind the scenes at Qom, with Iran's billionaire former president Rafsanjani manoeuvring to have the council of experts exercise their power to remove Khamanei from office and replace him, possibly not with a new supreme leader but with a three man council or some alternative arrangement. Rafsanjani was one of the powers of the 1979 revolution and personally dislikes Amahdinejad. He has been strangely silent despite his family being arrested earlier this week and Khamanei mentioning him by name at last Friday's prayers. Regardless of the accusations of corruption which Amahdinejad made during the election debates, if anybody has the leverage to act on behalf of the protesters, it's Rafsanjani, and he's in Qom. As well as chairing two important councils, he also commands respect among the Revolutionary Guard and the army. To think this is going to be played out on the streets is naive. There are two struggles going on. The popular unrest, and the warring factions within the 1979 revolution. In many people's eyes Ahmadinejad's election victory constituted a coup. If anybody launches a coup against Khamani, pray it doesn't lead to civil war.

What I find interesting is that because the regime came to power in a similar manner, they're acting to stomp down on the very tactics which created the regime. In that respect it's like they're cannibalising their own mirror image. And just like there were competing ideologies within the 1979 movement, between the leftists and the clerics, here there is a friction among the protesters between those who want a reformation of the legacy of 1979 and those who want a new revolution, or a counter-revolution. Amongst the young I get the feeling the antipathy is towards western power, not culture, so that a democratic Iran might share some core "western" principles without being pro-American. But in invoking the spirit of 1979, I do wonder if there might be a radicalising consequence to these events, so that even as Khamanei tries to eradicate his opponents, his actions are actually molding them into the very revolutionaries he fears, and confirming everything they say about the dictator as being true. For him it's ceased to be about Iran, it's just about remaining in power. But that might create an opposition movement which more closely resembles at least the ideals that Khomenei claimed to hold than it otherwise would. This could be the event which bridges the generational gap in Iranian society and offers greater continuity with the past. In a sense what is happening with the election results is the people are calling Khamanei's bluff. He pretends to have a democratic system and for years people have gone along with that. But now he rubs it in people's faces, they're holding him to account and exposing his hypocrisy, and his every action further confirms this, and he just doesn't get it. The propaganda will fail because it is too easily exposed as a lie. Khamanei even realises this himself and is resorting to bigger and bigger lies. The only thing which keeps his grip on power is brute force. Religious dissent against his authority will grow. Watching his speech last Friday it was clear that he is finished. Maybe not now, but soon. The Iranian establishment is not going to permit him to let his son become Supreme Leader. This is what this is about. Ahmadinejad has grown more powerful and Khamanei needs him to secure the succession. His contemporaries from 1979 are not about to let this stand. The people out on the streets are likely to get change, but whether it matches up to their hopes is another matter. Mousavi belongs to the 1979 leadership, but also has strong ties to the arts world, and recent events may have transformed his outlook. He is not leading events, he is following them, which is the way it needs to be. It will be interesting to see how this unfurls, and we should pray that the slogan of Gandhi not Guevara proves to be prescient, because the human risks of political opposition are high in Iran. The consequences for the region are of course astronomical. This is potentially the most significant global event since 1989 and 1991.