StrategyPage reports increased signs that Iran is headed towards violent revolution, for the second time in 25 years:
The country continues to slide towards civil war. Religious conservatives, seeing that they are facing a more hostile, younger and less religious population, are increasing their efforts to enforce conservative dress and behavior rules. This is leading to more confrontations between angry young people and religious conservatives threatening violence. More of these confrontations are turning violent, although so far the battles have not involved weapons (except for clubs and whips.) But once these disputes escalate to gunfire, the moderates will have martyrs that will inspire more widespread and heavily armed resistance.
It really doesn’t have to be this way. Say what you will about Iran’s theocracy, but it is a functioning democracy – but one where the clerics get a veto over the voters. The last 23 years have laid the political and cultural foundation for a peaceful revolution, one more like the Philippines after Marcos than Tehran after the Shah.
Sadly, the mullahs are too fanatical, too fond of power, and too dense to see that their days are ending. And unlike the Shah, the mullahs won’t blanche at slaughtering innocents.
One reaction to this report:
To what extent did the US decision to move senatorial races to the public, instead of relying on state legislatures, effectively prevent this kind of backlash?
The original government envisioned by the Founding Fathers would have been far less reflective of the popular will of the people (since they were intent on avoiding mob rule). Arguably, the mullahs believe they are doing the same thing---w/ the added "benefit," of course, that they get to continue to guide the course of the Iranian revolution. One suspects that they, unlike their American counterparts, are far less prepared to surrender this de facto veto of popular will.
An excellent point, Dean -- but I do have a quibble.
Indirect elections of senators was designed not merely to create a body less beholden to popular will than the House.
Staehouse selection of senators created a Federal body beholden to STATE interests, rather than national or popular interests.
Much of the dismantling of Federalism can, I think, be traced to the popular election of senators.
Hmmmm.
An interesting hypothesis. Although I'd suggest that the Civil War probably did more to dismantle Federalism than anything else, certainly in the 19th Century.
The demands of modern warfare AND economics, namely w/ WWI, WWII, and the Great Depression, of course, crippled Federalism even further.
So, the popular election of Senators, to my mind, is more a further codification of that shift towards FedGov, rather than the precipitating factor.
But lemme think about that a bit.
Agreed on the consequences of direct rule of Senators. But---
What if teams of mutaween impostors started roving around Iran, taking the real mutaween into custody as "fakes"?
I'm not quite as alarmist as the article seems to think we should be, in regards to immenent violent civil war. Maybe my faith in the wisdom of the people is misplaced here, but the clashes seem to me to be part of a relativey long process of democratic change. We'll see.
